Start of construction of EnBW Hohe See and Albatros

EnBW is building two new wind farms in the North Sea – which together form a bona fide “wind power plant”. With a combined output of 609 megawatts, the 87 wind turbines are as powerful as a coal power plant. They can generate enough electricity per year to supply on aggregate all of the private households in Munich. At peak times, more than 500 employees will be working at this large construction site in the middle of the sea. 40 ships will be involved in the construction work. This major project is being coordinated by the offshore branch of EnBW in Hamburg.

“EnBW Hohe See and Albatros are together the largest offshore project currently being constructed in Germany”, explains Dirk Güsewell, Head of Portfolio Development at EnBW. “We are thus strengthening our position as one of the leading offshore project developers and operators in Germany.”

The ship “Pacific Osprey” is currently being loaded with the foundations and will soon depart the port of Vlissingen in the Netherlands. Following a journey to the construction field lasting around 12 hours, the 72 metre long steel pipes will be installed in the seabed. The transition pieces – which will later hold the towers for the wind turbines – are then attached to these pipes.

EnBW Hohe See is located 95 kilometres north of Borkum and 100 kilometres northwest of Helgoland, while Albatros is being constructed in the immediate vicinity. In 2018, the foundations and the transformer station for Hohe See will be installed and the cables for the wind farm laid. In 2019, the wind turbines and the transformer station for Albatros will be erected. Both wind farms are due to be placed into operation by the end of 2019 and will generate around 2.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually. This energy will save around 1.9 million tonnes of CO².

In contrast to EnBW Baltic 1 and Baltic 2, EnBW has not set up a central harbour for Hohe See and Albatros. As a result, each contractor will deliver the components to the construction field from different harbours. The construction office is located at the Hamburg branch, where a total of around 150 employees work on all the offshore projects at EnBW. The service station for the offshore wind farms in the North Sea is due to be constructed from autumn 2018 in Emden and will start operating in 2019.

Siemens Gamesa has been commissioned to supply and install 87 wind turbines of type SWT-7.0-154 including the foundations and the transformer platform for Albatros. The contractual partner for the array cabling at the wind farm is VBMS GmbH, while a consortium consisting of ENGIE Fabricom, Iemants NV and CG Holdings Belgium NV is responsible for the transformer platform for Hohe See.

The Canadian energy infrastructure company Enbridge Inc has acquired 49.9 percent of the shares in both wind farms. EnBW will retain the remaining 50.1 percent in both cases.

EnBW plans to expand renewable energies to make them one of the main pillars of the EnBW business by 2020. In the Baltic Sea, EnBW already operates the offshore wind farms EnBW Baltic 1 and Baltic 2. In April 2017, EnBW was successful in the first offshore wind auction in Germany with the acceptance of its bid for the “He Dreiht” wind farm. The EnBW bid for the construction of the 900 megawatt project did not include EEG subsidies. Following the acceptance of the bid, the path is now clear for one of the largest offshore projects planned in Europe. In addition, EnBW entered the market in Taiwan in 2018 with the acquisition of 37.5 percent of the development companies for three projects in Taiwan with a total output of up to 2000 MW. An important focus for EnBW this year will be the further selective internationalisation of its offshore activities.